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Business Day 13 March 2018 An urgent court interdict was granted overnight to temporarily prevent Eskom from signing a deal that unions believe will lead to job losses and an increase in electricity prices. The National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) together with Transform RSA obtained the interdict at the High Court in Johannesburg on Monday night to prevent Eskom from concluding the outstanding renewable energy independent power producer (IPP) products‚ including the power purchase agreements. Read full story here…

Business Day LIVE 02 December 2016 The Treasury has made it clear that Eskom’s existing R350bn guarantee facility cannot be stretched to cover a new nuclear-build programme. But it has confirmed that the facility, whose March 2017 expiry date prompted rating agency S&P Global to downgrade Eskom’s rating deep into junk territory last week, will be extended to cover the much-delayed new power stations Eskom is already building. Read more here…

Supporting sound community trusts- establishment, governance and operations, hosted at the Industrial Development Corporation on the 23rd May 2016. Renewables projects have to comply with socio-economic development (SED) and enterprise development (ED) and also local ownership obligations. The latter requires projects to establish a legal entity representing a beneficiary community. Most projects opt to establish a community trust for this purpose. The role of this trust in the wider community engagement and development work of projects ishowever flexible. Depending on project location, beneficiary community characteristics and funder conditions, the formation and governance of these trusts tend todiffer a lot. This roundtable discussion unpacked and further explored the prerequisites of s...

ESI Africa 12 May 2016 On Wednesday, South African Energy Minister, Tina Joemat-Pettersson mooted the 2016 budget speech in Parliament, where she highlighted that Independent Power Producers’ (IPPs) capacity, under the Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers Programme (REIPPPP), is expected to grow to about 7,000MW. Read more here…

Intersolar Europe and ees Europe Munich, June 22–24, 2016 INTERSOLAR AND EES ON COURSE FOR GROWTH AROUND THE WORLD Positive global market development boosts success Munich, March 15, 2016 – Intersolar is sending a positive message to the industry – solar energy generation around the world is on the rise. Around 329 billion US dollars were invested in renewable energies last year, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. This represents a considerable increase of 4% from the previous year, and even stands 3% higher than the previous record achieved in 2011. Furthermore, after a difficult few years, growth returned to Europe’s photovoltaics (PV) market in 2015. This means that Intersolar Europe, too, can report positive figures for 2016. The world’s leading exhibition for the solar industr...

The launch of the Power Africa Roadmap took place yesterday. The Roadmap was originally announced by President Barack Obama during his state visit to SA in 2013. The governments of Norway, Sweden, Canada, United Kingdom, as well as the EU and NEPAD, have since joined as partners. Click here to download the roadmap. Amongst others, the roadmap aims to support the addition of 30 000MW of new generation capacity in sub-Saharan Africa by 2030, accompanied by 60 million new connections to electricity. Naturally, reference is made to the REIPPPP, low electricity access rates in a number of African countries, as well as developments related to gas, hydro, geothermal and renewable across sub-Saharan Africa. Part of the package includes an online project tracking tool (and an iPhone app). A public...

The Eastern Cape Government held the EC Provincial Sustainable Energy Forum on Thursday, March 10th, in Stutterheim. SAPVIA CEO, Moeketsi Thobela was invited to present on Possibilities for Black Industrialists. The presentation can be downloaded here.

The Minister of Energy, Ms Tina Joemat Pettersson, delivered the 2015/16 Budget Vote Speech on 19th May 2015, at the National Assembly, Parliament in Cape Town. The address will reflected on the progress the DoE has made in line with its mandate, and outlined the key initiatives and programme for the 2015/16 financial year. The Minister and Deputy Minister also held a Stakeholder Engagement and Networking Session at the Shimmy Beach Club, Victoria and Alfred Waterfront where some of our members display of PV related videos, images and artefacts.

Sponsored by: SAPVIA held it’s 17th Networking Event on 27 May 2015 at The Protea Hotel Fire & Ice,in Cape Town. SAPVIA’s Chairperson, Davin Chown lead the day’s proceedings with an update on the Association’s activities and strategy going forward, followed by a very informative presentation from Tanya Engels, Director; and Preshnee Govender, Senior Consultant, International Corporate Tax, KPMG South Africa on “Topical tax issues in respect of IPP’s, embedded generation & a brief look at carbon taxes” which can be downloaded here The final presentation on the day was led by Mike Smith, Partner, Renen Energy Solutions where he shared “A study on South Africa’s small-scale Solar PV installations: Market Demand, Financing and Supply” which can be downloaded h...